| Fuzhounese | |
| Nativename: | Chinese: 福州話 / Hók-ciŭ-uâ Chinese: 福州語 / Hók-ciŭ-ngṳ̄ Chinese: 平話 / Bàng-uâ |
| Pronunciation: | pronounced as /[huʔ˨˩ tsju˥˧ uɑ˨˦˨]/ |
| States: | China (Fuzhou and its surrounding counties) and Taiwan (Matsu Islands), Thailand (Chandi and Lamae), Singapore, Malaysia (Sibu, Miri, Sepang, Bintulu, Yong Peng, Sitiawan and Ayer Tawar) and Indonesia (Semarang and Surabaya) |
| Ethnicity: | Fuzhou |
| Speakers: | 10 million |
| Date: | 1994 |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Sinitic |
| Fam3: | Chinese |
| Fam4: | Min |
| Fam5: | Coastal Min |
| Fam6: | Eastern Min |
| Fam7: | Houguan |
| Ancestor: | Proto-Sino-Tibetan |
| Ancestor2: | Old Chinese |
| Ancestor3: | Eastern Han Chinese |
| Ancestor4: | Proto-Min |
| Dia1: | Matsu |
| Script: | Chinese characters and Foochow Romanized |
| Nation: | Matsu Islands, Taiwan (as local language[2])[3] |
| Minority: | one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the Matsu Islands[4] |
| Isoexception: | dialect |
| Iso6: | fzho |
| Glotto: | fuzh1239 |
| Glottorefname: | Houguan |
| Lingua: | 79-AAA-ice |
| Map: | Fuzhou language map.jpg |
| Mapcaption: | The Fuzhou dialect in Fujian Province, regions where the standard form is spoken are deep blue. 1: Fuzhou City Proper, 2: Minhou, 3: Fuqing, 4: Lianjiang, 5: Pingnan 6: Luoyuan, 7: Gutian, 8: Minqing, 9: Changle, 10: Yongtai, 11: Pingtan 12: Regions in Fuding, 13: Regions in Xiapu, 14: Regions in Ningde 15: Regions in Nanping, 16: Regions in Youxi |
| Notice: | IPA |
The Fuzhou language (FR: pronounced as /huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥˧ ua˨˦˨/), also Foochow, Hokchew, Hok-chiu, or Fuzhounese, is the prestige variety of the Eastern Min branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in the Mindong region of Eastern Fujian Province. As it is mutually unintelligible to neighbouring varieties (e.g. Hokkien) in the province, under a technical linguistic definition Fuzhou is a language and not a dialect (conferring the variety a 'dialect' status is more socio-politically motivated than linguistic). Thus, while Fuzhou may be commonly referred to as a 'dialect' by laypersons, this is colloquial usage and not recognised in academic linguistics. Like many other varieties of Chinese, the Fuzhou dialect is dominated by monosyllabic morphemes that carry lexical tones,[5] and has a mainly analytic syntax. While the Eastern Min branch it belongs to is relatively closer to other branches of Min such as Southern Min or Pu-Xian Min than to other Sinitic branches such as Mandarin, Wu Chinese or Hakka, they are still not mutually intelligible.
Centered in Fuzhou City, the Fuzhou dialect covers 11 cities and counties in China: Fuzhou City Proper, Pingnan, Gutian, Luoyuan, Minqing, Lianjiang, Minhou, Changle, Yongtai, Fuqing and Pingtan; and Lienchiang County (the Matsu Islands), in Taiwan (the ROC). It is also the second local language in many northern and middle Fujian cities and counties such as Nanping, Shaowu, Shunchang, Sanming and Youxi.[6]
The Fuzhou dialect is also widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The Malaysian city of Sibu is called "New Fuzhou" due to the influx of immigrants there in the late 19th century and early 1900s. Many Fuzhou people have also emigrated to Japan, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
In Chinese, it is generally termed in Chinese: t=福州話|s=福州话|p=Fúzhōuhuà, which in the native language (using the romanization Foochow Romanized) is: pronounced as /huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥˧ ua˨˦˨/. It is also sometimes called Chinese: 福州語 (Hók-ciŭ-ngṳ̄; pinyin: Fúzhōuyǔ), using a different term for 'speech'. Native speakers also call it Bàng-uâ (Chinese: 平話), meaning "the everyday language."
In English, the term "Fuzhou dialect" dominates, although "Fuzhounese" is also frequently attested. In older works written in English, the variety is called "Foochow dialect", based on the Chinese postal romanization of Fuzhou.
In Indonesia (especially in Surabaya of East Java), it is known locally as "Hokchia". Meanwhile in Malaysia and Singapore, it is often called "Hokchiu" (pronounced as /hɔk̚˥t͡ɕiu˦/), which is the pronunciation of Fuzhou in the Southern Min Hokkien language or "Huchiu" (pronounced as /hu˨˩t͡ɕiu˥/), which is the pronunciation of Fuzhou in the Eastern Min language of Fuzhou itself. Eastern Min and Southern Min are both spoken in the same Fujian Province, but the name Hokkien, while etymologically derived from the same characters as Fujian (Chinese: 福建), is used in Southeast Asia and the English press to refer specifically to Southern Min, which has a larger number of speakers both within Fujian and in the Chinese diaspora of Southeast Asia.
After the Qin dynasty conquered the Minyue kingdom of Southeast China in 110 BC, Chinese people began settling what is now Fujian Province. The Old Chinese language brought by the mass influx of Chinese immigrants from the Chinese heartland, along with the influences of local languages, became the early Proto-Min language from which Eastern Min, Southern Min, and other Min languages arose.[7] Within this Min branch of Chinese, Eastern Min and Southern Min both form part of a Coastal Min subgroup, and are thus closer to each other than to Inland Min groups such as Northern Min and Central Min.
The famous book Qī Lín Bāyīn, which was compiled in the 17th century, is the first and the most full-scale rime book that provides a systematic guide to character reading for people speaking or learning the Fuzhou dialect. It once served to standardize the language and is still widely quoted as an authoritative reference book in modern academic research in Min Chinese phonology.
In 1842, Fuzhou was open to Westerners as a treaty port after the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing. But due to the language barrier, however, the first Christian missionary base in this city did not take place without difficulties. In order to convert Fuzhou people, those missionaries found it very necessary to make a careful study of the Fuzhou dialect. Their most notable works are listed below:[8]
During the Second World War, some Japanese scholars became passionate about studying the Fuzhou dialect, believing that it could be beneficial to the rule of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. One of their most famous works was the Japanese-Chinese Translation: Fuzhou Dialect (Japanese: 日華對譯: 福州語) published in 1940 in Taipei, in which katakana was used to represent Fuzhou pronunciation.
By the end of the Qing dynasty, Fuzhou society had been largely monolingual. But for decades the Chinese government has discouraged the use of the vernacular in school education and in media, so the number of Mandarin speakers has been greatly boosted. Recent reports indicate that less than 50% of young people in Fuzhou are able to speak the Fuzhou dialect.[9]
In Mainland China, the Fuzhou dialect has been officially listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage[10] and promotion work is being systematically carried out to preserve its use. In Matsu, currently controlled by the Republic of China located in Taiwan, the teaching of the local variant, the Matsu dialect, has been successfully introduced into elementary schools.[11] It is also one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in Matsu[12] and in Fuzhou.[13]
Like all Chinese varieties, the Fuzhou dialect is a tonal language, and has extensive sandhi rules in the initials, rimes, and tones. These complicated rules make the Fuzhou dialect one of the most difficult Chinese varieties.[14]
There are seven original tones in the Fuzhou dialect, compared with the eight tones of Middle Chinese:
| Name | Tone contour | Description | Example | five-scale IPA (李1994)[15] | five-scale IPA (冯1998)[16] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dark-level (Ĭng-bìng Chinese: 陰平) | pronounced as /˥/ | high level | Chinese: 君 | 44 | 55 | |
| Rising tone (Siōng-siăng Chinese: 上聲) | pronounced as /˧/ | middle level | Chinese: 滾 | 31 | 33 | |
| Dark-departing (Ĭng-ké̤ṳ Chinese: 陰去) | pronounced as /˨˩˧/ | low falling and rising | Chinese: 貢 | 213 | 212 | |
| Dark-entering (Ĭng-ĭk Chinese: 陰入) | pronounced as /˨˦/ | middle rising stopped | Chinese: 谷 | 23 | 24 | |
| Light-level (Iòng-bìng Chinese: 陽平) | pronounced as /˥˧/ | high falling | Chinese: 群 | 53 | 53 | |
| Light-departing (Iòng-ké̤ṳ Chinese: 陽去) | pronounced as /˨˦˨/ | middle rising and falling | Chinese: 郡 | 353 | 242 | |
| Light-entering (Iòng-ĭk Chinese: 陽入) | pronounced as /˥/ | high level stopped | Chinese: 掘 | 5 | 5 |
The sample characters are taken from the Qī Lín Bāyīn. More modern studies have also been done in the late 20th century and early 21st centuries, including an acoustically quantified set of data for the citation tones.[17]
In Qī Lín Bāyīn, the Fuzhou dialect is described as having eight tones, which explains how the book got its title (Bāyīn means "eight tones"). That name, however, is somewhat misleading, because Ĭng-siōng (Chinese: 陰上) and Iòng-siōng (Chinese: 陽上) are identical in tone contour; therefore, only seven tones exist.
Ĭng-ĭk and Iòng-ĭk (or so-called entering tone) syllables end with either velar stop pronounced as /[k]/ or a glottal stop pronounced as /[ʔ]/. However, they are both now realized as a glottal stop, though the two phonemes maintain distinct sandhi behavior in connected speech.
Besides those seven tones listed above, two new tonal values, "˨˩" (Buáng-ĭng-ké̤ṳ, Chinese: 半陰去) and pronounced as /˧˥/ (Buáng-iòng-ké̤ṳ, Chinese: 半陽去) occur in connected speech (see Tonal sandhi below).
Little discussed in the existing literature, there is some evidence that Fuzhou uses non-modal phonation with certain tones: creaky for Chinese: 陰去 ĭng-ké̤ṳ, Chinese: 陰入 ĭng-ĭk, Chinese: 陽去 iòng-ké̤ṳ, and breathy for Chinese: 上聲 siōng-siăng. This has been shown to be perceptually relevant for tonal identification.[18]
The rules of tonal sandhi in the Fuzhou dialect are complicated, even compared with those of other Min dialects. When two or more than two morphemes combine into a word, the tonal value of the last morpheme remains stable but in most cases those of the preceding morphemes change. For example, "Chinese: 獨", "Chinese: 立" and "Chinese: 日" are words of Iòng-ĭk (Chinese: 陽入) with the same tonal value pronounced as /˥/, and are pronounced pronounced as /[tuʔ˥]/, pronounced as /[liʔ˥]/, and pronounced as /[niʔ˥]/, respectively. When combined as the phrase "Chinese: 獨立日" (Independence Day), "Chinese: 獨" changes its tonal value to pronounced as /˨˩/, and "Chinese: 立" changes its to pronounced as /˧/, therefore the pronunciation as a whole is pronounced as /[tuʔ˨˩ liʔ˧ niʔ˥]/.
The two-syllable tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below (the rows give the first syllable's original citation tone, while the columns give the citation tone of the second syllable):
| Ĭng-bìng (Chinese: 陰平 pronounced as /˥/) | Iòng-bìng (Chinese: 陽平 pronounced as /˥˧/) Iòng-ĭk (Chinese: 陽入 pronounced as /˥/) | Siōng-siăng (Chinese: 上聲 pronounced as /˧/) | Ĭng-ké̤ṳ (Chinese: 陰去 pronounced as /˨˩˧/) Iòng-ké̤ṳ (Chinese: 陽去 pronounced as /˨˦˨/) Ĭng-ĭk (Chinese: 陰入 pronounced as /˨˦/) | ||
| Ĭng-bìng (Chinese: 陰平 pronounced as /˥/) Ĭng-ké̤ṳ (Chinese: 陰去 pronounced as /˨˩˧/) Iòng-ké̤ṳ (Chinese: 陽去 pronounced as /˨˦˨/) Ĭng-ĭk-ék (Chinese: 陰入乙 pronounced as /˨˦/) | |||||
| Iòng-bìng (Chinese: 陽平 pronounced as /˥˧/) Iòng-ĭk (Chinese: 陽入 pronounced as /˥/) | |||||
| Siōng-siăng (Chinese: 上聲 pronounced as /˧/) Ĭng-ĭk-gák (Chinese: 陰入甲 pronounced as /˨˦/) |
Ĭng-ĭk-gák (Chinese: 陰入甲) are ĭng-ĭk (Chinese: 陰入) syllables ending with -k pronounced as //k// and ĭng-ĭk-ék (Chinese: 陰入乙) are those with a final -h pronounced as //ʔ//.[19] [20] The most widely accepted explanation is that the final glottal stop is inherited from the Proto-Min glottal stop, and that the final -k is the result of the merger of all other proto-Min final stops: *-p, *-t, *-k. It has also been suggested that the -k group represents an earlier development of the stops, before weakening to a glottal stop. This distinction made between the glottal stop and the -k is said to have been maintained in the literary readings of characters until quite recently.[17] Both are usually realized as the glottal stop by most modern speakers of the Fuzhou dialect, and have the same tone in isolation, but they are still distinguished both in the above tone sandhi behavior, and in initial assimilation that occurs after them.[17] [20] Although the iòng-ĭk (Chinese: 陽入) tone is also a checked tone composed of both types of syllables, in -k and in -h, there is no split in its realization, either in isolation or in its tone sandhi behavior.[17]
The three patterns of tone sandhi exhibited in the Fuzhou dialect may be a reflex of the voicing split from Middle Chinese into different registers. This is based on a comparison with the tonal sandhi system of the subdialect of Lianjiang, a very similar but more conservative Eastern Min variety, where three tonal categories on penultimate syllables ("Yin" / Ĭng / Chinese: 陰 from unvoiced consonants in Middle Chinese; "Yang" / Iòng / Chinese: 陽 from voiced consonants in Middle Chinese; and a third "Shang" / Siōng / Chinese: 上 tonal category from the Middle Chinese "rising tone" 上聲 where the Yin and Yang registers have merged) interact with the tonal category of the final syllable to form the sandhi pattern in Lianjiang.[21] Although the effect of the historical tonal registers from Middle Chinese is clear in Lianjiang, the Fuzhou tonal sandhi system has deviated from the older pattern, in that the tone Iòng-ké̤ṳ 陽去pronounced as /˨˦˨/, which is from the historical "Yang" tonal register, now follows the sandhi rules for the "Yin" register; and the sandhi tone Ĭng-ĭk-gák 陰入乙 pronounced as /˨˦/, which comes from the historical "Yin" register, follow the sandhi rules for the merged "Shang" tone.[22]
The tonal sandhi rules of more than two syllables display further complexities. For three-syllable domains:
| Original tones | After tone sandhi | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First syllable | Second syllable | Third syllable | First syllable | Second syllable | Third syllable |
| All tones | Dark level /˥/ Dark departing /˨˩˧/ Light departing /˨˦˨/ Dark checked (B) /˨˦/ | Dark level /˥/ Light level /˥˧/ Light checked /˥/ | Half dark departing /˨˩/ | Dark level /˥/ | No change |
| Rising /˧/ Dark departing /˨˩˧/ Light departing /˨˦˨/ Dark checked /˨˦/ | Light level /˥˧/ | ||||
| Rising /˧/ Dark checked (A) /˨˦/ | Dark level /˥/ Light level /˥˧/ Light checked /˥/ | Half dark departing /˨˩/ | |||
| Rising /˧/ | Half light departing /˧˥/ | ||||
| Dark departing /˨˩˧/ Light departing /˨˦˨/ Dark checked /˨˦/ | Dark level /˥/ | ||||
| Dark level /˥/ Dark departing /˨˩˧/ Light departing /˨˦˨/ Dark checked (B) /˨˦/ | Light level /˥˧/ Light checked /˥/ | Dark level /˥/ Light level /˥˧/ Light checked /˥/ | Dark level /˥/ | Dark level /˥/ | |
| Rising /˧/ | Light level /˥˧/ | Rising /˧/ | |||
| Dark departing /˨˩˧/ Light departing /˨˦˨/ Dark checked /˨˦/ | Half dark departing /˨˩/ | ||||
| Rising /˧/ Dark checked (A) /˨˦/ | Dark level /˥/ Light level /˥˧/ Light checked /˥/ Rising /˧/ | Half light departing /˧˥/ | Rising /˧/ | ||
| Dark departing /˨˩˧/ Light departing /˨˦˨/ Dark checked /˨˦/ | Dark level /˥/ | Half dark departing /˨˩/ | |||
| Light level /˥˧/ Light checked /˥/ | Dark level /˥/ Light level /˥˧/ Light checked /˥/ Rising /˧/ | Rising /˧/ | Rising /˧/ | ||
| Dark departing /˨˩˧/ Light departing /˨˦˨/ Dark checked /˨˦/ | Half dark departing /˨˩/ | Half dark departing /˨˩/ | |||
Four-syllable words can be treated as two sequential two-syllable units, and undergo two-syllable tone sandhi accordingly; in faster speech, the first two syllables are reduced to a half dark departing tone, and the remaining two syllables undergo two-syllable tone sandhi. A domain of four syllables is the maximum, with anything larger broken down to into smaller domains.[17]
There are fifteen initials, including a zero initial realized as a glottal stop pronounced as /[ʔ]/:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as //m// (Chinese: 蒙) | pronounced as //n// (Chinese: 日) | pronounced as //ŋ// (Chinese: 語) | |||
| Plosive | aspiration | pronounced as //pʰ// (Chinese: 波) | pronounced as //tʰ// (Chinese: 他) | pronounced as //kʰ// (Chinese: 氣) | ||
| plain | pronounced as //p// (Chinese: 邊) | pronounced as //t// (Chinese: 低) | pronounced as //k// (Chinese: 求) | pronounced as //ʔ// (Chinese: 鶯) | ||
| Fricative | pronounced as //s// (Chinese: 時) | pronounced as //h// (Chinese: 喜) | ||||
| Affricate | aspiration | pronounced as //tsʰ// (Chinese: 出) | ||||
| plain | pronounced as //ts// (Chinese: 曾) | |||||
| Lateral | pronounced as //l// (Chinese: 柳) | |||||
The Chinese characters in the brackets are also sample characters from Qī Lín Bāyīn.
Some speakers find it difficult to distinguish between the initials pronounced as //n// and pronounced as //l//.
No labiodental phonemes, such as pronounced as //f// or pronounced as //v//, exist in the Fuzhou dialect, which is one of the most conspicuous characteristics shared by all branches in the Min Family.
pronounced as /[β]/ and pronounced as /[ʒ]/ exist only in connected speech (see Initial assimilation below).
In the Fuzhou dialect, there are various kinds of initial assimilation, all of which are progressive. When two or more than two syllables combine into a word, the initial of the first syllable stays unchanged while those of the following syllables, in most cases, change to match its preceding phoneme, i.e., the coda of its preceding syllable. As with the rime changes, initial assimilation is not as mandatory as tone sandhi in connected speech, and its presence and absence may indicate different parts of speech, different meanings of a single word, or different relationships between groups of words syntactically.[23]
| The Coda of the Former Syllable | The Initial Assimilation of the Latter Syllable |
|---|---|
| Null coda or pronounced as //-ʔ// |
|
| pronounced as //-ŋ// |
|
| pronounced as //-k// | All initials remain unchanged. |
Note that although pronounced as //-k// and pronounced as //-ʔ// are generally pronounced the same in isolation, realized as a final glottal stop pronounced as /[-ʔ]/, they cause drastically different effects on the initials that follow. They also differ in how common it is to drop them in natural linked speech. These have been called prelinked and floating glottal stops respectively in academic literature.[20]
The table below shows the seven vowel phonemes of the Fuzhou dialect. Fuzhou is known for its vowel alternations much discussed in the linguistic literature.
| Front | Central | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | ||||
| Close | pronounced as //i// pronounced as /[i~ɛi]/ | pronounced as //y// pronounced as /[y~œy]/ | pronounced as //u// pronounced as /[u~ɔu]/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as //e// pronounced as /[e~a]/ | pronounced as //ø// pronounced as /[ø~ɔ]/ | pronounced as //o// pronounced as /[o~ɔ]/ | ||
| Open | pronounced as //a// | ||||
In the Fuzhou dialect, the codas pronounced as //-m//, pronounced as //-n//, and pronounced as //-ŋ// have all merged as pronounced as //-ŋ//, and pronounced as //-p//, pronounced as //-t//, pronounced as //-k// have all merged as pronounced as //-ʔ//. Seven vowel phonemes, together with the codas pronounced as //-ŋ// and pronounced as //-ʔ//, are organized into forty-six rimes.[24]
| Monophthongs | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pronounced as //a// | pronounced as //e// | pronounced as //ø// | pronounced as //o// | pronounced as //i// | pronounced as //u// | pronounced as //y// | ||
| Open syllable | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | |
| Nasal Coda pronounced as //-ŋ// | ) | ) | ) | ) | ||||
| Glottal Coda pronounced as //-ʔ// | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | |
| Rising diphthongs | Falling diphthongs | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pronounced as //ja// | pronounced as //je// | pronounced as //wa// | pronounced as //wo// | pronounced as //ɥo// | pronounced as //ai// | pronounced as //au// | pronounced as //eu// | pronounced as //ei// | pronounced as //ou// | pronounced as //øy// | pronounced as //iu// | pronounced as //ui// | ||
| Open syllable | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | |||
| Nasal Coda pronounced as //-ŋ// | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ||||||
| Glottal Coda pronounced as //-ʔ// | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ) | ||||||
As has been mentioned above, there are theoretically two different entering tonal codas in the Fuzhou dialect: pronounced as //-k// and pronounced as //-ʔ//. However, for most Fuzhou dialect speakers, those two codas are only distinguishable when in the tonal sandhi or initial assimilation.
Some rimes come in pairs in the above table: the one to the left represents a close rime (Chinese: 緊韻), while the other represents an open rime (Chinese: 鬆韻). This vowel alternation of close/open rimes is closely related with the tones. In single syllables, the tones of Ĭng-bìng (Chinese: 陰平), Siōng-siăng (Chinese: 上聲), Iòng-bìng (Chinese: 陽平) and Iòng-ĭk (Chinese: 陽入) have close rimes, while Ĭng-ké̤ṳ (Chinese: 陰去), Ĭng-ĭk (Chinese: 陰入) and Iòng-ké̤ṳ (Chinese: 陽去) have open rimes.
In connected speech, an open rime shifts to its close counterpart in the tonal sandhi. For instance, "Chinese: 福" (hók) is a Ĭng-ĭk syllable and is pronounced pronounced as /[hɔuʔ˨˦]/ and "Chinese: 州" (ciŭ) a Ĭng-bìng syllable with the pronunciation of pronounced as /[tsiu˥]/. When these two syllables combine into the word "Chinese: 福州" (Hók-ciŭ, Fuzhou), "Chinese: 福" changes its tonal value from pronounced as /˨˦/ to pronounced as /˨˩/ and, simultaneously, shifts its rime from pronounced as /[-ɔuʔ]/ to pronounced as /[-uʔ]/, so the phrase is pronounced pronounced as /[huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥]/. In contrast, in the word "Chinese: 中國" pronounced as /[tyŋ˥˧ kuoʔ˨˦]/ (Dṳ̆ng-guók, China), "Chinese: 中" is a Ĭng-bìng syllable and therefore its close rime never changes, though it does change its tonal value from pronounced as /˥/ to pronounced as /˥˧/ in tonal sandhi.[25]
As with initial assimilation, the closing of open rimes in connected speech is not as compulsory as tone sandhi. It has been described as "a sort of switch that flips on and off to indicate different things", so its presence or absence can indicate different meanings or different syntactic functions.
The phenomenon of close/open rimes is nearly unique to the Fuzhou dialect and this feature makes it especially intricate and reduces its intelligibility, even to speakers of other Min varieties. Even cross-linguistically, such phonological tone-vowel interactions are rare.[26]
The neutral tone is attested in the Fuzhou dialect, as well as being found in the Southern Min group and in varieties of Mandarin Chinese, including Beijing-based Standard Mandarin. It is commonly found in some modal particles, aspect markers, and some question-forming negative particles that come after units made up of one tone sandhi domain, and in some adverbs, aspect markers, conjunctions etc. that come before such units. These two types, the post-nucleus and the pre-nucleus neutral tone, exhibit different tone sandhi behavior. Disyllabic neutral tone words are also attested, as are some inter-nuclei neutral tones, mainly connected to the use of 蜀 siŏh /pronounced as /suoʔ˥// in verbal reduplication.[27]
Most words in the Fuzhou dialect have cognates in other varieties of Chinese, so a non-Fuzhou speaker would find it much easier to understand the Fuzhou dialect written in Chinese characters than spoken in conversation. However, false friends do exist: for example, "Chinese: 莫細膩" (mŏ̤h sá̤-nê) means "don't be too polite" or "make yourself at home", "Chinese: 我對手汝洗碗" (nguāi dó̤i-chiū nṳ̄ sā̤ uāng) means "I help you wash dishes", "Chinese: 伊共伊老媽嚟冤家" (ĭ gâe̤ng ĭ lâu-mā lā̤ uŏng-gă) means "he and his wife are quarreling (with each other)", etc. Mere knowledge of Mandarin vocabulary, with the cognates Chinese: [[wikt:細膩|細膩]] xìnì, Chinese: [[wikt:對手|對手]] duìshǒu and Chinese: [[wikt:冤家|冤家]] yuānjiā, does not assist in understanding the nuance of such sentences.
The majority of Fuzhou dialect vocabulary dates back more than 1,200 years. Some everyday words are still in use as they were in the Tang dynasty, as illustrated by a poem of a renowned Chinese poet of the era, Gu Kuang.[28] In his poem Jiǎn (Chinese: 囝), Gu Kuang explicitly noted:
In the Fuzhou dialect, "Chinese: 囝" (giāng) for 'son' and "Chinese: 郎罷" (nòng-mâ) for 'father' are still in use today.
Quite a few words from Old Chinese have retained the original meanings for thousands of years, while their counterparts in Mandarin Chinese have either fallen out of daily use or varied to different meanings.
This table shows some Fuzhou dialect words from Old Chinese, as contrasted to Mandarin Chinese:
| Meaning | Fuzhou dialect | Foochow Romanized | Mandarin | Pinyin | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| eye | Chinese: 目睭/目珠 | mĕ̤k-ciŭ pronounced as /[møyʔ˥ tsju˥]/ | Chinese: 眼睛 | yǎnjīng | |
| you | Chinese: 汝 | nṳ̄ pronounced as /[ny˧]/ | Chinese: 你 | nǐ | |
| chopstick | Chinese: 箸 | dê̤ṳ pronounced as /[tøy˨˦˨]/ | Chinese: 筷子 | kuàizi | |
| to chase | Chinese: 逐 | dṳ̆k pronounced as /[tyʔ˥]/ | Chinese: 追 | zhuī | |
| to look, to watch | Chinese: 覷/覰/䁦 | ché̤ṳ pronounced as /[tsʰœy˨˩˧]/ | Chinese: 看1 | kàn | |
| wet | Chinese: 潤 | nóng pronounced as /[nɔuŋ˨˩˧]/ | Chinese: 濕 | shī | |
| black | Chinese: 烏 | ŭ pronounced as /[u˥]/ | Chinese: 黑 | hēi | |
| to feed | Chinese: 豢 | huáng pronounced as /[hwaŋ˨˩˧]/ | Chinese: 養² | yǎng |
1 "Chinese: 看" (káng) is also used as the verb "to look" in the Fuzhou dialect.
2 "Chinese: 養" (iōng) in the Fuzhou dialect means "give birth to (a child)".
This table shows some words that are used in the Fuzhou dialect close to as they were in Classical Chinese, while the meanings in Mandarin Chinese have altered:
| Word | Foochow Romanized | Meaning in Classical Chinese and the Fuzhou dialect | Pinyin | Meaning in Mandarin | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 細 | sá̤ pronounced as /[sa˨˩˧]/ | tiny, small, young | xì | thin, slender | |
| Chinese: 說 | suók/siók pronounced as /[swoʔ˨˦]/ | to explain, to clarify | shuō | to speak, to talk | |
| Chinese: 懸 | gèng pronounced as /[keiŋ˥˧]/ | tall, high | xuán | to hang, to suspend (v.) | |
| Chinese: 喙 | chói pronounced as /[tsʰwi˨˩˧]/ | mouth | huì | beak |
Some daily used words, shared by all Min varieties, came from the ancient Minyue language. Such as follows:
| Word | Foochow Romanized | Southern Min / Taiwanese POJ | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 骹 | kă ([kʰa˥]) | kha ([kʰa˥]) | foot and leg | |
| Chinese: 囝 | giāng pronounced as /[kjaŋ˧]/ | kiáⁿ ([kjã˥˩]) | son, child, whelp, a small amount | |
| Chinese: 睏 | káung pronounced as /[kʰauŋ˨˩˧]/ | khùn pronounced as /[kʰun˨˩]/ | to sleep | |
| Chinese: 骿 | piăng pronounced as /[pʰjaŋ˥]/ | phiaⁿ pronounced as /[pʰjã˥]/ | back, dorsum | |
| Chinese: 儂 | nè̤ng pronounced as /[nøyŋ˥˧]/ | lâng pronounced as /[laŋ˨˦]/ | human | |
| Chinese: 厝 | chuó/chió pronounced as /[tsʰwo˨˩˧]/ | chhù pronounced as /[tsʰu˨˩]/ | home, house | |
| Chinese: 刣 | tài pronounced as /[tʰai˥˧]/ | thâi pronounced as /[tʰai˨˦]/ | to kill, to slaughter |
The literary and colloquial readings is a feature commonly found in all Chinese dialects throughout China. Literary readings are mainly used in formal phrases derived from the written language, while the colloquial ones are used in colloquial phrases in the spoken language, as well as when used on their own.
Phonologically, a large range of phonemes can differ between the character's two readings: in tone, final, initial, or any and all of these features.
This table displays some widely used characters in the Fuzhou dialect which have both literary and colloquial readings:
| Character | Literary reading | Phrase | Meaning | Colloquial reading | Phrase | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 行 | hèng pronounced as /[heiŋ˥˧]/ | Chinese: 行李 hèng-lī | luggage | giàng pronounced as /[kjaŋ˥˧]/ | Chinese: 行墿 giàng-duô | to walk | |
| Chinese: 生 | sĕng pronounced as /[seiŋ˥]/ | Chinese: 生態 sĕng-tái | zoology, ecology | săng pronounced as /[saŋ˥]/ | Chinese: 生囝 săng-giāng | childbearing | |
| Chinese: 江 | gŏng pronounced as /[kouŋ˥]/ | Chinese: 江蘇 Gŏng-sŭ | Jiangsu | gĕ̤ng pronounced as /[køyŋ˥]/ | Chinese: 閩江 Mìng-gĕ̤ng | Min River | |
| Chinese: 百 | báik pronounced as /[paiʔ˨˦]/ | Chinese: 百科 báik-kuŏ | encyclopedical | báh pronounced as /[paʔ˨˦]/ | Chinese: 百姓 báh-sáng | common people | |
| Chinese: 飛 | hĭ pronounced as /[hi˥]/ | Chinese: 飛機 hĭ-gĭ | aeroplane | buŏi pronounced as /[pwi˥]/ | Chinese: 飛鳥 buŏi-cēu | flying birds | |
| Chinese: 寒 | hàng pronounced as /[haŋ˥˧]/ | Chinese: 寒食 Hàng-sĭk | Cold Food Festival | gàng pronounced as /[kaŋ˥˧]/ | Chinese: 天寒 tiĕng gàng | cold, freezing | |
| Chinese: 廈 | hâ pronounced as /[ha˨˦˨]/ | Chinese: 大廈 dâi-hâ | mansion | â pronounced as /[a˨˦˨]/ | Chinese: 廈門 Â-muòng | Amoy (Xiamen) |
The First Opium War, also known as the First Anglo-Chinese War, was ended in 1842 with the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, which forced the Qing government to open Fuzhou to all British traders and missionaries. Since then, quite a number of churches and Western-style schools have been established. Consequently, some English words came into the Fuzhou dialect, but without fixed written forms in Chinese characters. The most frequently used words are listed below:[29]
Some common phrases in the Fuzhou dialect:
Most words of the Fuzhou dialect stem from Old Chinese and can therefore be written in Chinese characters. Many books published during the Qing dynasty had been written in this traditional way, such as the famous Mǐndū Biéjì (Chinese: 閩都別記, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-dŭ Biék-gé). However, Chinese characters as the writing system for the Fuzhou dialect can have many shortcomings.
First, a great number of words are unique to the Fuzhou dialect, so that they can only be written in informal ways. For instance, the word "mâ̤", a negative word, has no common form. Some write it as "Chinese: 賣" or "Chinese: 袂", both of which share with it an identical pronunciation but have an irrelevant meaning; and others prefer to use a newly created character,, combining "Chinese: 勿" and "Chinese: 會", but this character is not included in most fonts.
Second, the Fuzhou dialect has been excluded from the educational system for many decades. As a result, many if not all take for granted that the Fuzhou dialect does not have a formal writing system and when they have to write it, they tend to employ characters with a similar Mandarin Chinese enunciation. For example, "Chinese: 會使 (â̤ sāi)", meaning "okay", are frequently written as "Chinese: 阿塞" because they are uttered almost in the same way.
See main article: Foochow Romanized. Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê (Chinese: 平話字, BUC for short) or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê (Chinese: 福州話羅馬字), is a romanized orthography for the Fuzhou dialect adopted in the middle of 19th century by American and English missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized several decades later. Foochow Romanized was mainly used inside of church circles, and was taught in some mission schools in Fuzhou.[30]
Mǐnqiāng Kuàizì (Chinese: 閩腔快字, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-kiŏng Kuái-cê), literally meaning "Fujian Colloquial Fast Characters", is a Qieyin System (Chinese: 切音系統) for Fuzhou dialect designed by Chinese scholar and calligrapher Li Jiesan (Chinese: 力捷三) in 1896.
Below is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights written in the Fuzhou dialect, using both Foochow Romanized (left) and Chinese characters (center).
| BUC version | Hanzi version | English version |
|---|---|---|
| 聯合國世界人權宣言 | Universal Declaration of Human Rights | |
| 第一條 | Article 1 | |
| Chinese: 所有儂生下來就是自由其， | All human beings are born free | |
| Chinese: 並且著尊嚴共權利上一律平等。 | and equal in dignity and rights. | |
| Chinese: 伊各儂有理性共良心， | They are endowed with reason and conscience | |
| Chinese: 並且應該以兄弟關係其精神來互相對待。 | and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. | |
pronounced as /[tě.ěiʔ.téu]
[sū.jū.nø̂ŋ.séiŋ.kjǎ.lî.tsěu.sěi.tsø̌y.jú.kî,]
[pěiŋ.tsʰjá.tjóʔ.tsóuŋ.ŋjêŋ.kǎøŋ.kwôŋ.líʔ.sjǒŋ.ěiʔ.lúʔ.pîŋ.tēiŋ]
[í.kǎuʔ.nø̂ŋ.ǒu.lī.sèiŋ.kǎøŋ.ljôŋ.síŋ,]
[pěiŋ.tsʰjá.èiŋ.kāi.ī.hjáŋ.tjě.kwáŋ.hjě.kî.tsíŋ.lî.hǒu.sjóŋ.tòi.tài]/
See main article: Min Opera.